Hong Kong online babywear retailer Little Starters says Chinese are embracing the concept of its subscription boxes, which debuted in the city earlier this year.
Designed to save time and bother for busy parents, the bespoke service delivers curated selections from its own range of baby and toddler clothing designs direct to the home. Already a well-established and popular retail concept in major Western countries, the success and popularity of subscription boxes abroad prompted the brand’s decision to pioneer the strategy in Hong Kong with a view to expanding into the potentially lucrative Mainland China market.
“We’ve had a great response so far”, says Ellen Ogren, one of the brand’s two founding members who each have strong backgrounds in the fashion industry overseas. “Keep in mind that we only launched this three months ago – we’ve been lucky to have had a lot of organic social media coverage and a steady growth of subscribers every week. A true tell is when we get someone who signs up for a single box and then switches to monthly or seasonal, and that has been happening.”
Parents interact with the Little Starters website by answering a brief quiz that collects their child’s age, size, and style preferences – and then opt for either a one-off package or a subscription, with each delivery consisting of seven hand-selected items based on the results of the quiz. Returns for unwanted items are free of charge, and there’s a 20 per cent discount for customers who decide to keep the entire box. Long-term subscribers will notice the curated clothing sizes gradually increasing to match their growing child.
“Anyone who lives in Hong Kong can see how e-commerce is expanding”, says co-founder Leisia Tsang, pictured above, noting how services such as Foodpanda have seen increasing numbers of users shop online rather than at traditional retail outlets.
“The way that parents are shopping isn’t necessarily how they were doing it 10 years ago, so we wanted to create something that felt relevant for the parents of today, something progressive.
“We’ve tweaked the model to appeal more to the mainland Chinese market and the way they shop”, says Tsang. “More and more I see the mainland market leaning towards a Western style, especially for their children.”
“I think it’s also about introducing a brand”, adds Ogren, “so we talk about Californian lifestyle, and we’re launching it as an aspirational brand, which is what we’ve seen the Chinese consumer wants.”
Given the growth of e-commerce in the region as a form of shopping in general, the two founders are confident about their prospects of achieving fast growth.
”Whether or not the subscription content is going to roll into the next ten years or not”, says Tsang, “you know that parents are only getting busier, and that’s something that’s going to be even more prevalent in the future – which is why we see a lot of longevity in Little Starters.”
